26 July 2007
Day Twenty-three at Bristol
Thunderstorms last night (wonderful sleeping weather!) made for a later than planned start to the work in the glass studio this morning. But, once we got going, we rocked! I began my day by learning to use the grinder on the marver table. The marver table is a large, very heavy steel table (in Renaissance times it would have been a marble slab) used as a work surface for picking up colour, and shaping the molten glass into the tubular shape needed before a bubble of air can be blown into it. In a rainstorm, in a renfaire setting, the studio gets wet around the edges, and the marver table rusts! So, as the apprentice today, I got to bring the table up to snuff, as it were. My arms vibrated for nearly an hour after I was done!
Shannon made tumblers today—and I helped on the first two or three just like always—preparing pipes, setting out colour, paddling, and torching the piece just before it gets put away. But, then, I got a great surprise—the gaffer decided it was time for me to learn to punte! I was honoured and delighted, because she is fully capable of doing her own punte work on smaller pieces like tumblers. That’s what we’d been doing on the first few items. So, I was very excited, and a little nervous.
The punte (pun-tee) is the little knob of glass that is used to transfer the piece from one pipe to another. It is a huge responsibility, really, because here is a mostly finished, beautiful piece of art glass, being made by a master, and then, in the punte-ing process, that piece—at least temporarily—is in the hands of the apprentice! First, I practiced the process of gathering and marvering the punte itself, and presenting it to her, and got that “hands on” perspective that merely watching it be done dozens of times doesn’t do for you. After I’d done that a few times, she decided I was ready, and I punte-ed every piece we did after that! No issues; no problems; only one needed a reheat; everything ended up in the box and beautiful! Okay . . . yes . . . I’m a little bit proud.
Some time in the workshop, but of course not enough, this afternoon, and then off to Racine for dinner at Kelly and Joseph’s house. They had prepared a marvelous dinner for seven—the six in the photo, and me! We were all set to dine al fresco, when the rain began again, so we quickly and easily moved everything into the dining room. The dinner and the company couldn’t have been better! The same cannot be said for my photo, but I wanted to use this photo as my photo of the day, darnit. So, here it is—grainy and dark, but six of my favourite smiling faces in the world. Kyle at least got to talk to the group by phone, and give Joseph one last birthday song—he was sorely missed by all—especially me!
And incidentally—-I found my cell phone, safe and sound when I got home this evening!
~MB
